Art as a means of survival. Call it therapy.

 

Well ... if you've read my previous post, you'll know what my biiiig problem is at the moment. How many times are you told to prepare for imminent widowhood, and how are you supposed to deal with it?! Beats heck out of me. I don't have any more answers to this question now than I had in October last year, when the bombshell dropped on us from a great height. But life goes on, and even though I -- honestly, seriously, genuinely, unavoidably, do not have time to do artwork, the images and imagination are still bubbling away inside my brain. Now...

You know me. Normally, I don't actually approve of AI. I've always said that AI art is not real art -- and it isn't. That belief hasn't changed, and won't change. Art is where an artist sits down with tools and hours to spend on a unique project, and when they're done, they sign off on something that is a slice of their personality, a taste on their soul, a mirror reflecting their psyche. That's real art. AI is ... well, it's like this:

But although that, above, is neither artwork nor photography, it is vision, it is imagination, it is  creativity. And there are times -- as I am discovering right now -- when AI has its part to play. My mind is still filled with visions. My imagination is still running hot and fast. Mentally, I have never been more creative, but there is no time or energy, and there are no resources for me to "do art." But...

...if I don't find an outlet for all this imagination and creativity, I am probably going to go bonkers. Sure, a lot of you will line up to say I've been bonkers for years, and you're probably right. But this is quite a nice kind of bonkers; the kind that prompts beauty and serenity, and invites one's mind to spin stories off the top of images that popped out of the scenes I've glimpsed. Like:

That. There's a game I used to play years ago, when Mom was in her last months and I was, frankly, climbing the walls with grief and anxiety, not even admitting that I, myself, was seriously ill (and due to land in hospital for multiple surgeries only ten weeks after Mom passed, in 2017). I would slap together five or ten completely unrelated images and challenge myself, and other people who played the game with me, to conjure a story that wove together all the images. Mmmm...

It was fun, and it would give me just a few minutes' relief and release from the burden of reality. Now, I'm not going to tell you that Dave and I have reached that point yet. We're still fighting this thing. But we're also told that there is no way back from this beast that has sunk its claws into him, and all we can do is buy time, days, weeks, months that are to be cherished before it gets ... ugly. Well, we'll see about that. But the spectre is there in the back of your mind most of the time. Hmmm.

All of the above comes down to an inescapable bottom line. I need to find a way to "get out of myself" for long enough to hold onto my sanity. It cannot be art per se: as I said before, there is neither time nor energy for proper art. And as for writing -- same story. I'm an editor now. A good one. I enjoy it, and I do it well. But as for writing? No energy. You might not realise how much energy it takes to write coherent, luminous, emotionally rewarding fiction. Those days, if they ever return, and I hope they do, probably belong to a relatively distant future. But --

I can negotiate with an AI to winkle some of this creativity out of my beleaguered brain. And this is the part that AI has to play. Call it therapy, if you like. It relaxes me. It "takes me out of myself," and for just a short time I can forget, or almost forget, the beast that is lurking in the shadows. So...

...so let's visit alien worlds. Let's travel to other times and places. Let's forget who we are and what we must do just to get through one more day. Let's embrace AI for what it is: therapy. And no, I am not claiming that I painted any of these images! I didn't. You know me better. I hope, than to think I'd tell porkies of that magnitude! The most I did was put the images into Photoshop, adjust the colour balance, gamma, saturation, erase some "artefacts," and add lens flare.

I enjoy working on Photoshop -- always did -- and it's quick, once you know how to drive it properly. But 99.5% of this visual material, today, is right out of the AI, given some pretty smart prompts from yours truly, to get close (or close enough) to the images I'd imagined, to accept the result and smile. Like this:

Now, that's just neat, and it took about three minutes. The AI I'm using is mostly Imagen_4, which is accessed via Google's Gemini, plus, occasionally, Image-fx, also from Google. The images are better than those from Bing, and also Google doesn't "play silly buggers" with points that are traded for the privilege of making a picture -- points you have to buy or earn by patronising Microsoft in some way. Got no time, no money, and zero desire to faff about, guys. Google just gifts me the freedom to make pictures when I have some free time, and when inspiration is burning...

So let's hang onto sanity while Dave and I get through this, however we get through it. And in the meantime, let's go places and do things through the medium of images that I can create, via the alchemy of AI. I've embraced it. It has its place: it is serving me. It is going a long way toward saving me. I've changed my signature line to read "Jen's AI Imagination," which is utterly candid and honest. So let's see where Imagen_4 and Image-fx take us. (To reach Imagen_4 you just go to gemini.google.com and type in, "Create an image..." and then describe what you want. To use Image-fx, you would go to https://labs.google/fx/tools/image-fx, and follow the prompts. Gemini's Imagen_4 is so easily that a five year old could use it. The other is more ambitious. I leave it to you to choose your favourite.)

Merrie Yuletide, 2024

To friends and family ... Merrie Yuletide in the north and Beltane in the south, as we all celebrate the turning of the year. In Australia, it's the Solstice of Summer but -- as always -- my heart is in the north. 

That feeling that maybe you just bit off more than you can chew...

 

Well, it seemed like a great idea -- and it is -- but it also seemed like a simple idea that could be executed in no time at all. At that was the big mistake. A brand new gallery site for my art, photos and writing ... why not? And while I was building the template, oh yes, it was easy. No problem at all. Then came the task of feeding in the content, at which point I realized that every topic (such as Fantasy, Science Fiction, what have you) will have to be multiple pages, because images that are too large aggregate into massive downloads per page, which is ... not good. So...

...we soldier on through the project, but rather than it being simple and easy, it's turned into something of a nightmare. Not because the work is especially difficult (it isn't), but because there's so much of it, I could spend six or eight hours a day on it -- for weeks. In other words, yep, you bet, the gallery site is going to be brilliant. It just won't be happening as quickly as I'd thought it would. I simply underestimated the amount of time this monster was going to take! Still...

...if I can just get there in the end, through sheer stubborn persistence, you can see the viewing experience this website will offer. It's a gallery to be proud of, and, like the blogs I'm working on, it'll properly represent me and my work. The gallery that is currently online is very old. The newest art on it goes back to 2012, and everything in those days was a bit primitive and "undercooked" by comparison with what we're all doing now. Yep, I've known for a long time, this needed to be done, but ... I suppose some part of me suspected what a monster it would turn into into, and kept putting it off, and putting it off again, till -- here we are. Argh. 

Round Two ... and it was no easier this time than last!

What can you say? Fully vaccinated against Covid and 'flu ... I get Covid so badly, it's hard to describe. Worse yet, it's left me with the symptoms of "Post Covid Syndrome," which I'm hoping and praying won't turn into Long Covid. Sigh. 

Add to this, the camera chose this moment to die, and the car had major breakdowns again. And all this was right on top of my birthday -- a real milestone birthday, to boot! -- so that everything that had been planned was cancelled. Vacation, trip, the lot. The whole experience was huge fun ... argh. 

So for me, it's been about art lately. I'm not going to bang on too much, here, about the sheer rottenness of what's been going on. Most people would tell you that their lives are full of the same kind of twaddle (I could use stronger language!), and when you contrast this nonsense with what's going on in the Mid East right now, well ... yeah. So --

So ... art. It's been easier to paint than even attempt to write, but in the last couple of days I'm starting to feel up to working on my blogs and new website again. Got to start somewhere, and this is it! Energy levels are so low that the batteries go flat literally while you watch, but ... at least we're doing something!

Playing Catch-up With Myself: October ... Destination: Yorke Peninsula

We'd wanted to do a road trip for a long time, but with it being so difficult to rationalize taking accommodation where you're almost certain to catch the plague (or SARS-Cov 2, which is just harder to type), we decided to make it a day-trip. This has become our rule, though it's a rule we intend to break when the van has been fully refurbished: van camping is firmly on the agenda. But for now ... it's day-trips, as far as you can go by getting on the road at 5:00am and not getting home till about ten at night. So --

Destination Yorke Peninsula. 

Not that we haven't been there before (we have), but it had been a long time, and the Yorke is different enough to make it attractive. We do travel around a lot, between Burra and Clare Valley, to the tip of the Fleurieu Peninsula, as far east as Tintinara and points on the Coorong; and past a certain point, you've been everywhere so often, the idea of going again gets a bit "meh."

So: pack the day before, load the car at 5:00am and get out of Dodge as soon as you're functional. Point the car due north, hang a left onto the Copper Coast Highway, just beyond Port Wakefield, then -- go exploring. The Yorke is a nice place; a lot of people are clearly deciding it's a great place to live, because there are new housing developments everywhere you look. Moonta, Walleroo and so on are turning into yuppie suburbs, with expensive houses and marinas. O...kay. Perhaps people are retiring over there? Because it's difficult to see how so many people would find enough work in the rural centres to pay today's kind of mortgage.

But we were only there for the day, and the weather was great for a change...

It was a great trip, and in lieu of staying overnight somewhere, the day-trip is a happy compromise. But I'm looking forward very much to the van camping, I will admit. The freedom of being able to go out for two or three days is seductive. So the van is going in for service work very soon, and then -- as I write this Catch-up post in early February -- the plan is to head for Mount Gambier. This is going to be very cool, since we haven't been there in ten years or so. So long, I can't really remember when we did that last trip!

We had bacon and egg for brekkie in Port Wakefield, picnicked for lunch at a place with a table on a cliff, set among fields of wild gazania, and stopped for a good-sized snack on the river at Port Wakefield just as the sun was going down. From Port Wakefield to home is about 90 minutes, so we were in good time, and we came home with some nice pictures.

La Nina decides to stay for the summer

Photo by Dave, and his amazing camera phone!

What November blog would be be complete without some mention of the weather? This is beyond absurd. With seven days of the month left, an Aussie summer about to start in one week, it's chilly and bucketing down. The plan for today was coffee at the Aldinga Aerodrome café, where they do excellent cappuccino, and then on to Belair NP for a picnic, a walk, "pitch camp" at our favourite area, and spend a quiet hour or so reading. Well, we got as far as the coffee at the airfield part!

It's settled in to rain all day; there "isn't enough blue in the sky to patch a sailor's jacket," and it's not even warm! A week off summer, and I went out in my winter coat! La Niña. What can you say? The forecast is, it's here for the summer, for the seond consecutive year. Sooo ... I'll just settle down and spend the rest of the day with artwork...

Lately, since writing has been impossibly difficult, I've been concentrating on art, and reading my old stuff, trying to reawaken the literary muse. I think I feel it starting to stir awake and whisper into my ear, but all I've been able to produce lately are drabbles and poems; though one or two of those poems, I'm rather proud of. Especially this one ... pentameter is extremely hard to wrangle. But since the computer upgrades in May - July, the software has been bouncing me around like a rubber ball, and it's tiresome. I now have a computer that's faster and faster at doing less and less, because the software has become uncooperative, due to some subtle incompatibility with the hardware, post-upgrade. So --

Writing is becoming more attractive! I'm also going to try a different software system, something called Unreal Engine. That might make it possible for me to do stuff that, lately, has become ridiculously impossible, when it used to simply be slow, before the upgrade! Who'da thunkit?! But yes, writing is becoming more and more attractive, as the art becomes increasingly problematical. I have a short piece to finish, a novel to finish editing, a novella to begin, a number of flash-length items to do, then (gulp) a novel to write. There's plenty of work waiting for me --

And with the pandemic about to reach South Australia at last, I shall have nothing but time on my hands. The state opened its borders about fifteen hours ago, at a minute past midnight this morning. We're about to go from zero covid cases, none at all, to many thousands, with many hundreds in hospital, thousands in quarantine, and scores dead. I guess it had to happen sooner or later, but the fact is, we've kept it out of SA for twenty months, and some of us don't want to let it in. Sigh. 

The personal plan at the moment is to "go to ground," lie low, and watch what happens. What can you say? Nothing. Grumbling doesn't help. Much. What can you do? Subtract yourself from the equation, focus on art, writing, reading, go for walks in the national parks, and just don't go anywhere people are t be found in the mass ... and watch how it plays out over four to ten months. Yes, months. 2022 is shaping up as a long, slow year.

I'll post again soon, when the Christmas tree goes up ... yep, it's that time again. I haven't written much here in 2021, because I couldn't find much to write about; also, anything I write, and stuff that's published, lands on my writing blog now. On top of that, I'm about to float an art blog, to showcase my work. Oh, yes, I can keep myself busy, no question of that! 

The June Report ... late

 

Here's the June Report coming in a week late ... the computer has been in the workshop. Verdict: malware, picked up from regions unknown. I don't go anywhere to get malware -- the only sites I download from are safe, even the "second tier" ones, like Polyhaven.com, Brushezy.com and VHV.rs -- I know, I checked. From those sites, I download things like HDRI images to use as environment lights for 3D renders, .ABR Photoshop brushes to paint with, and PNG files for combination into projects. Yes, they're free resources, but they're from kosher sites; so ... who knows what's safe these days? Bottom line, it cost me $99 to have the system back home, malware-free and reconfigured to be a) screamingly fast, and b) Win11 compatible...

For some reason, I've struggled this last month. My health isn't what it should be -- pain levels too high, energy levels too low. So I'm not getting the exercise I need, and am noticing that my fitness is slumping. But how do you walk those distances, up hill, on screaming feet and hips? It's getting more difficult as time goes by, and every day my body reminds me that I'm ploughing through my sixties. Not my forties or fifties, my sixties. The thought is enough to chill your blood. Ack. We solider on.

Soooo ... I get out when I can (which isn't nearly often enough; another downside to disability), and get all the walking I can (ditto), and I can only hope the body will improve naturally as spring comes in. This is the dead of winter, after all. The big hope I'd had was that the new camera would be really, really good, and give me the impetus to get out there, hike many miles, get the great photos ... well, it didn't happen. The Panasonic Lumix FZ-80 is something of a compromise camera. They loaded it with technology, but skimped on lens quality, and when it got to high-end technology, again, they shorted the unit. The sensor is too small; the processor is too wimpy; there aren't enough megapixels (they opted for 18MP, not 20.3, as in the TX-90); the lens elements are ... not Leica. And you can tell. Put the whole shebang together, and you get a $450 packet of "Hmmm" moments ... in other words, it's a good stopgap camera, to get me through a couple of years when I simply cannot afford something better. But my sights are set on a range of Nikons, and which I buy in 2024-ish, will be down to how, and even if, my writing is turning into a cash flow!

At the moment, writing isn't turning into cash, but I still have to hope. If you didn't hope, you'd drop the whole effort! I look at Mike and see how he's succeeding ... but I also look at the sheer volume of work he's investing in his career. And I realise how burned out I am. I got through Dark is The Valley, and I seem to have stalled. I don't seem to be able to find the resolve, energy or inspiration to write -- and writing doesn't just happen by itself. So ... art.

And the art is getting better than ever, bigger and more complex, better executed. Yes, of course I've thought about trying to turn art into a cash flow! But the competition there is just as fierce as in the field of writing and trying to sell stories -- the pay checks are about the same, but I doubt there are a tenth as many art (card?) publishers as there are indie magazine publishers, while there are more artists trying to get through the door with them. So yes, I've thought about trying to turn the art into cash, but how can I not be a realist about this? Hmmm.

So ... at the moment art is purely a hobby. It might become more, it might not -- and the same could be said of writing. Both of these hobbies tend to pivot on my state of health, which is a bit dodgy at the moment; and writing is the biggest challenge of all. I know I can do it ... but do I want to? That's the huge question right now. I suspect I'll feel better about it when the Analog issue is published, and my name appears in it. Has to happen sometime in the next six months or so, because the story was accepted on my birthday last year. I tell myself, "Hold on, things will soon look different." And I still trust myself -- more or less. 

...and so ends the June Report, about a week late!